Sunday, 29 January 2012

How much tax dollars are wasted on translations of official documents into languages that are neither English or French? How much health care dollars are wasted on similar translations so that immigrants can get health care documentation in their native tongue? How much time and money have been wasted on the need for translation services in the the legal system? How much money can be saved simply by demanding immigrants speak one of Canada's two official languages even at a functional capacity before they are allowed entry? These are public monies that could be put to more productive use had immigrants been better screened for language skills or had bothered themselves to learn our languages.

Post WWII immigrants to Canada did not get this kind of hand-holding from the government and neither did the waves of immigrants who preceded them. And they turned out fine; they adapted and integrated. In fact, it has becomes a point of pride for many of them to boast about how they succeeded in Canada without all the government services that is so readily available to immigrants now. So why should immigrants now be treated any differently?

Wednesday, 25 January 2012

Here's a story that I think hints at a problem that mass immigration has created for Canada and will get worse in the future. The problem is foreign governments using their sizeable Canadian colonies to exert pressure on Ottawa to influence policies - both public and foreign - so that they are favourable to them even if it is not in Canada's interests.

In the linked story we learn of Iranian-Canadians (which are just Iranians with the legal right to carry a Canadian passport) "caught in the crossfire" of Canada's sanctions against Iran.

Canada’s sanctions against Iran were meant to stop Tehran’s ability to build nuclear weapons, but they are also having a devastating impact on Canada’s large Iranian diaspora, community leaders say.

Now there are talks underway between the foreign ministry and the federal immigration department to address the effects that a devalued Iranian currency and a ban on financial transactions are having on Iranian-Canadians.

It’s a frustrated community — in some cases desperate — that has been waylaid by the squeeze on their homeland. Many say the problems could have been avoided if Ottawa had consulted them before pressing ahead with the sanctions.

I didn't know Ottawa needed to consult them first before deciding on how to deal with a foreign regime such as Iran but this is what I'm getting at. How is Ottawa supposed to effect a viable independent foreign policy if it is distracted by the concerns of the members of a particular nation's Canadian colony? What is stopping a country with a sizeable Canadian colony, like China for instance, of using that colony to pressure Ottawa through voting power, political organizations, and protests to influence public and foreign policy to be favourable to Chinese interests?

It can also be socially disruptive as the populations of quarrelling nations who reside in Canada and call themselves "Canadians" compete for Ottawa's attention and bicker with each other.

Am I questioning immigrant loyalty to Canada. This answer is yes. For the most part, at least.

Many immigrants today think they can be loyal to two masters. This is our fault because it is encouraged through official multiculturalism and dual citizenship. Others see Canada as nothing more than a place to squat, get rich, and shop in a mall; it is a place of entitlements and social programs; Canada means very little to them beyond that. Immigrant loyalty to Canada, in my opinion, is lacking nowadays and is superficial at best, only expressed when the camera is on and the microphone is hot and if there is something to lose by saying otherwise. I blame Canada for this. When you make little demands of immigrants, incessantly pander to them, fill their heads with Marxist ideology of victimhood, and accommodate them at the drop of a hat what kind of attitude are you to you expect?

The crippling of Canadian foreign policy is another way mass immigration is undermining Canadian sovereignty and it is a talking point that is rarely raised simply because, I think, it is one that is not readily obvious. But it is potentially problematic and it needs to be raised for the sake of further discussion and for the sake Canadian independence.

Wednesday, 18 January 2012

New federal immigration rules passed in 2008 to make the system more streamlined and "responsive" to Canadian economic needs were exploited by Chinese fraudsters, according to newly released internal documents.

{...}

Bill C-50, passed in 2008 under former minister Diane Finley, was intended to let the government set priorities in its selection of economic immigrants to ensure emphasis on particular skilled workers needed by Canadian businesses.

Studies found many applicants misrepresented their education and exaggerated their experience.

{...}

One study of skilled worker applicants from Hong Kong under the AEO program during 2008-10 found only 22 per cent had genuine jobs in Canada and many had "very low" English-speaking skills.

"There are serious problems with the validity of job offers" in the AEO category, wrote the authors of the analysis.

An analysis by the Canadian government's anti-fraud unit in Beijing, meanwhile, found that between late 2008 and early 2010, more than one in five applicants (22 per cent) misrepresented their own employment records.

The greatest abusers were supposed "financial auditors and accountants," as 42 per cent of them were lying about their credentials and were in many cases merely cashiers or bookkeepers.

Another above-average category was financial managers, with 27 per cent of applications being fraudulent.

"Employment fraud is an issue on certain profiles of C-50 applications," stated a summary of the report that considered applications for workers headed primarily to Ontario.

"A more thorough verification pro-cess is required."

Another 2010 study of applicants from Taiwan found that of 31 AEO applicants, the vast majority headed for B.C., only five - or 16 per cent of the total - took jobs with the employers that made the offers.

So is this another provincial nominee program going bust largely due to fraud that always seems to involve the Chinese in a kind of "where there's smoke there's fire" sort of way? And if you're finding a few then there's probably a lot more you're not seeing. Am I insinuating that Asian immigration fraud is rampant? Why yes! Yes, I am.

Our consulates in the whole of Asia are routinely subject to fraud yet we continue to entertain Asian immigration as if nothing is happening and as if Asian immigration has brought any real benefits to the country and Canadians. If the consulates are understaffed which allows this fraud to happen then perhaps closing a few should be in the works starting with the ones in Chandigarh, Punjab, Indiaand in Hong Kong and then let's go from there. It's not like we need all this immigration from Asia anyway.

Sunday, 15 January 2012

When westerners go to eastern countries with the expectation that the natives would allow and adapt to our cultural practices, it was usually proceeded by a military conquest and came in the form of imperialism and colonialism that the "progressives" in our society despise. Yet they are enthusiastic supporters of a reverse form of cultural imperialism that lets foreigners come to Canada and expect the majority culture to change to accommodate the minority.

Thursday, 12 January 2012

Blogger BlazingCatFur has a video interview of Peter Brimelow by Michael Coren on SunTV news. If you haven't watched it already you can view it here.

If you don't know who Peter Brimelow is you can read his bio here but he happens to be the founder of VDARE.com.

In the interview he mentions some things that help explain the psychology (psychosis?) of the pro mass-immigration movement.

The obvious one is the assault on the living standards and culture of the working classes. Now, I should point out that he doesn't mention the cultural angle but it's one that I'll raise here because the assault on the working class is an attack from two fronts: the left and the right.

On the right we have the owners of capital. Immigration is, and always has been, an attack on the incomes of the working class. The most obvious historical example of this is the importation of cheap Asian labour, primarily Chinese labour, into North America in the construction of the national rail roads. This ever increasing supply of cheap and willing labour creates a downward pressure on wages resulting in the flow of capital upwards and concentrating it into fewer hands. And today it's the middle classes that are feeling its effects as their numbers are eroding under the weight of record household debt, stagnant incomes, an uncertain economic future, and a growing income gap between the rich and poor that is more pronounced than it was during the Great Depression. Immigration isn't solely to blame for this but it sure as hell isn't helping.

From the left the working class is being attacked on the cultural front. Working class culture is inherently conservative and thus are hated by the "progressives" for it because they stand as an obstacle to their agenda of refashioning Canada in their image. Immigration, primarily non-white immigration from the developing world, effectively neutralizes working class Canadian culture through the sustenance, promotion, and expansion of the multicultural program. By saying Canada is a multicultural country is to dismiss the existence of a dominant "mainstream" culture. And by dominant I mean the majority. And the will of the majority is what we call democracy. And if that majority, or a large portion of it, happens to be working class and conservative then things don't bode well for those with a "progressive" agenda. So you say Canada is a multicultural country; which is to say that there is no dominant mainstream culture; which is a clever way the "progressive" left get around that nasty thing we call popular will (i.e. democracy) and thus gives them license to change the country to how they see fit.

It's a divide and conquer strategy since immigrants typically flood into working class neighbourhoods because housing is more affordable. As a result the voting power of the conservative working class in those neighbourhoods is pacified and the electoral riding shifts left. Or at least it's supposed to because the last election proved that it's not a guaranteed outcome and the left may have in fact miscalculated and taken the immigrant/ethnic vote for granted.

In any event what I find sinister is how the "progressive" left infiltrated and co-opted the labour movement to advance their agenda and take it on a course that not only makes the labour movement unrecognisable to the working class but attacks them while at the same time claiming to be their champions. Things like multiculturalism, same sex marriage, and issues affecting the Middle East, among others, have little if anything to do with advocating for fair wages, safe working conditions, exploitation of labour, etc., but they sure do mean a lot to Canada's "progressive" elites. This is why the core support for the NDP, a party allegedly representative of the working class, is found in the hearts of the nation's major urban centres, places where you won't find working class culture at all. Places that do host working class culture tend to vote blue.

Returning to the interview, Peter Brimelow used the term "Hitler's revenge" to describe the psychosis of the pro mass-immigration movement and I think he's right on the mark with it. "Hitler's revenge" is the psychological trauma left in the wake of the genocidal practices of the Nazi regime during WWII that the west overcompensates by going to the opposite extreme. To understand this you have to acknowledge race and that the west is, at least for now, overwhelmingly white. To show that they are nothing like the white supremacist, genocidal Nazi regime that they so vehemently fought to defeat the west threw open its doors to non-white immigration thus inviting their own genocide of sorts, both culturally and racially, by nursing a situation in which they, the white majority, will become minorities in their own countries.

I think both situations are nefarious because both are an attack on a people whether that attack is intentional or not. Balance is needed in the immigration system so that the host population is not threatened with displacement or extinction by an alien force be that force invited or otherwise. Canada is a nation with a history, language(s), and a culture that is preserved in its people. Replace the people and you lose all of that.

Sunday, 8 January 2012

Here's more on the scandals that sank the provincial nominee programs in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and P.E.I.

From the National Post:

The Maritime provinces were among the first to sign on to the federal government’s provincial nominee program, a specialized immigration program aimed at giving provinces more control over attracting the kind of business investors and skilled workers who could fit their economic needs.

For P.E.I., New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, that meant the promise of an influx of wealthy immigrant investors whose deep pockets and international business acumen they believed could kick-start their struggling economies, refresh their shrinking populations and wean their governments off federal transfer payments. In exchange, immigrants got visas to live and work in Canada far faster than they could under similar federal immigration schemes.

But as of last month, immigrant investor programs had collapsed in all three provinces. In September, the federal government demanded the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency investigate P.E.I.’s troubled immigration program. Last month, New Brunswick announced it had called in the RCMP to investigate an immigration program aimed at Chinese investors that it had shut down a year earlier after a flurry of lawsuits. Earlier this year neighbouring Nova Scotia announced it had settled a $30-million class action lawsuit an immigrant investor program that has been shut down since 2006. The province says it has no plans to restart an immigrant investor program anytime soon.

This cuts to the heart of the bankruptcy of the immigrant investor stream revealing it to be nothing more than citizenship for sale. ImmigrationWatchCanada.org sheds more light on this sham of a program here.

There are a few things we should take note of in the wake of the collapse of the provincial nominee programs in the Maritimes.

The first thing is the rampant fraud that was the oil that kept the motor running. In the case of P.E.I, if the allegations hold, it is fraud the leads right to the door of the Premier's office. If you think I am insinuating that whole immigration system is infected with fraud because of what occurred in the Maritimes then you are correct. Recall it happened in three, not one, but three provinces. One time is an isolated incident, two times is a coincidence, but three times establishes a pattern thus exposing a rot in Canada's immigration policy.

We should also note at how little the host populations - the inhabitants of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and P.E.I. - benefited from the program if at all. They certainly did not benefit economically because the so-called "investors" - mostly Chinese nationals looking to acquire Canadian citizenship as an asset by buying it - did not create any real jobs because they mostly created jobs for themselves by opening up small businesses like corner stores, spas, hair saloons, dry-cleaners, motels, and restaurants. These business proposals were getting so ubiquitous that a bidding war erupted for those kinds of establishments. On the cultural front Maritimers were inviting cultural suicide as they faced losing their identity to the rapid influx of an Asian colonizing force.

Thirdly it educates us on the fallacy of looking to immigration as the solution to the problems of population stagnation or decline. It is well accepted by those not tied to the immigration industry and who take their credentials seriously that immigration cannot alleviate ageing populations or reverse population declines. To disagree with this is to believe a myth. In the case of the Maritimes if those provinces are having a hard time keeping their own people in their respective provinces what makes them think a bunch of foreigners are going to stick around long enough to grow their populations. And not surprisingly they have retention problems when it comes to holding on to their immigrants.

The result has been that the Maritimes has some of the lowest retention rates for immigrants under the provincial nominee program, with some studies saying as few as half the immigrants nominated by the Maritime provinces end up settling there. The number of immigrants who stayed is almost impossible to gauge, since none of the provincial governments tracked whether its immigrants even set foot in the province. Nova Scotia’s auditor-general found that of 618 immigrants nominated under the province’s business mentorship program, only 212 were ever matched up with local businesses. In P.E.I., the auditor-general found just 368 of 1,100 immigrants ever registered with provincial authorities to let them know they had arrived.

The scandals that have engulfed the Maritime provincial nominee programs have proved a cautionary tale for a region enticed by the prospect of reversing years of population decline with a flood of new money and young families, but without the budget or expertise to manage its own full-blown immigration system.

Though the libertarian National Post seeks to root the problem in inexperience I think it more truthful to believe that most of the immigrants had little intention of staying in the Maritimes. They were only there to stick around long enough to get Canadian citizenship so that the can skip town for greener pastures by either moving to elsewhere in the country (Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary) or back to their homeland (China) with a Canadian passport in hand.

And why not? What do the Maritimes have to offer anyone? If population growth is a paramount concern for the Maritimes then it should be investing in industries that will support its current population and encourage population growth. These would be industries that offer well paying jobs, like ship building or resource extraction as examples, that would act as an incentive for the local population to stay and grow as well as act as a magnet for others to move to the provinces. I know this is easier said than done but nothing worth doing is easy. However, what I am trying to say here is that the Maritimes problem of population retention and growth is a domestic issue that needs a domestic solution by investing in the domestic population and economy. Inviting foreigners from China to settle in the Maritimes who end up opening up restaurants, flower shops, corner stores, and dry-cleaners is not going to accomplish anything of real long-term value for the region. This the cheap and easy route where the only accomplishment is the turning of the Maritimes into a Chinese colony of the Canadian East Coast ensuring Canada becomes the Asian colony of Canadasia from Vancouver B.C. to St. John's Newfoundland.

Another lesson is the limits to population growth. How big a population can P.E.I. realistically support?

Ultimately this is about the commodification of Canadian citizenship and the resulting devaluation of it. By placing a price on it like the investor program does it means Canadian citizenship can be measured for its worth by placing a dollar value on it. Canadian citizenship should be priceless of which the only way one can obtain it is by receiving it as a gift. Sadly the Canadian government has cheapened the value of Canadian citizenship by relaxing the standards by which can obtain it, practically giving it away at wholesale prices to every Johnny-come-lately. With the investor class one can simply buy it and as a Canadian how cheap does that make you feel?